Introduction
Mystery Skype is a 45-60 minute critical thinking challenge that everyone will take part in while Skyping with another class somewhere else in the world. Your students' goal is to guess the other school's location (country, city, school name) before they guess yours. We do this by asking yes and no questions.
Mystery Skype can:
- Create a global community of learners
- Enhance critical Thinking
- Improve geography skills
- Enhance Listening and Speaking skills
- Encourage students to use resources to find information
- Increases collaboration and communication
- Encourages challenge-based Learning
- Create partners for future projects
- Get teachers to collaborate globally
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Develop a plan to locate and collect information/ data about Caribbean countries using various tools such web applications and search engines on computers or mobile devices.
- Work effectively in a group setting to identify the Caribbean country
- Recognize our Caribbean neighbors.
Task
- We will connect with another classroom, located in a different Caribbean country, by searching for "Mystery Skype" on the internet.
- We will pick a date and time,
- We will have our webcam and microphone ready and do a test call to make sure our technology is working. We will be using, either skype or Google Hangouts.
- For this activity, we have to find out where this mystery class is calling us from. It can be any island/ country from the Caribbean, but we can only ask yes or no questions. They, in turn, will be trying to figure out where we are.
- I will designate specific roles for each child. I will assign roles or jobs before the call to spread out the responsibility and give all students a sense of involvement and purpose. We will be doing these calls throughout an entire week so the jobs or roles will rotate and students will get the hang of it, which will make everything run more smoothly.
- These are the list of jobs:
- Greeters. They say hello to the other class and offer some cool facts about our own class without giving away the location.
- Inquirers. They ask the questions and are the voice of the classroom.
- Answerers. They answer the questions. These students need to know their country facts and geography pretty well.
- Think tanks. They sit in a group and figure out the clues based on the information.
- Question keepers. They type all of the questions and answers for us to review later.
- Mappers. They use maps, digital or analog, to study the geography and piece together clues.
- Atlas mappers. They use atlases and our pull-down map to decipher clues.
- Clue keepers. They work closely with answerers and inquirers to help guide them in their questioning.
- Runners. They run from group to group relaying information.
- Photographers. They take pictures during the call.
- Videographers. They record the event.
- Clue markers. Working with puzzles shaped like the Caribbean, they remove any countries that were eliminated by the clues.
- Problem solvers. They help students with any issues they may encounter during the call.
- Closers. They end the call in a nice manner.
Process
- I will prepare the students at least a few days in advance so they can gather materials, such as maps and atlases, or ask questions about their responsibilities.
- During the call, I will stand back and let the students do their jobs, communicate and work as a team. Teamwork is going to get them to the right questions. Experience helps with this as well.
- I will encourage students to collaborate before guessing, and set ground rules for how quickly they can guess the Caribbean country, so it does not degenerate into "Is it this country?" over and over. This is where they hone their geography skills as they use landmarks, weather information and cardinal directions to figure it out.
- The only assistance, students will be given, is my help to get them back on track if needed, particularly if their guess was incorrect. This will keep going until both classrooms have figured it out, and then be ready to ask other questions to get to know each other.
Evaluation
Students will go over all the facts given and talk about what helped them figure out the country. They will also think of different questions they could have asked to assist them in figuring out the country, capital and school name.
Conclusion
Once the call is complete, I will give students time to reflect on what worked and what did not. I will step back and allow them to discuss. I will be offering gentle suggestions, but the students should make the ultimate decisions.